Introduction:
Having a proper HR solution is a key task for the
HR executives to manage their employees.
The primary job of HR manager is to manage
employee’s daily attendance, i.e. the employee’s every day Time IN
& Time OUT. There are various ways for it. Traditionally the
companies using manual punch card machine, later proximity card
system / barcode card system was in place. But still there was a
problem of buddy punching (making proxy attendance for other
employees). To address the issue Biometric Fingerprint system has
introduced which is very fast / accurate &
efficient.
Once employee’s TIME IN & OUT timing captured
by any type of machine then it has to be linked to a Time
Attendance Software to generate the useful attendance
reports. Those calculated attendance
details needs to be linked to payroll software for the employee
salary calculation. In addition to that there is a need to maintain
employee leaves like annual leave, medical leave, unpaid leave,
etc…
If a HR
manager has all the above solutions with different vendors /
different platform then it will be very difficult to maintain and
operate. There will be lot of hiccups to integrate the different
software’s and more importantly being the database is not
integrated the newly join / resign employee details need to be
entered multiple times in different software’s.
So it very
efficient and cost effective to have an integrated HR solution
which comprises of fingerprint time recorders (preferably), time
attendance, leave, Payroll & HR software’s.
Fingerprint Time
Recorder:
It is very efficient to have a fingerprint time
recorders to track the employees attendance instead of having
manual punch card. The biggest advantage of using the fingerprint
system is the employees can’t do the buddy punching (making proxy
attendance for other employees).
Usually in most of the fingerprint time
recorder, Up to 3 fingers per employee
can be registered. While doing attendance the employee can use any
one of the finger to do clocking. The purpose of registering 3
fingerprints is if any one finger has problem due to injured / cut
/ dirty then the employee can use alternative finger. So it is
better to have a fingerprint time recorder with higher capacity.
Usually the time recorder will have the capacity of 1500 / 3000 /
5000 fingerprint templates.
It takes
about one second to verify the employee finger, once verified the
employee id, Date & time will be recorder into the device
internal memory. Also it is good to have a device which can store
more records. In general most of the fingerprint time recorder can
store 20,000 / 30,000 / 50,000 records. Once the records reach the
limit the new record will automatically overwrite the very first
record. Those records can be downloaded to
the Time Attendance Software
via built-in Network card or via Thumb
Drive.
Time Attendance
Software:
Information from fingerprint time recorder can be
transferred to the Time Attendance Software which
will calculate the useful information
like Lateness, Overtime, allowances, etc...
A good time
attendance software should have the option for different shift
patterns, Supports unlimited rotation duty roster, Auto-shift feature (System auto-assign working
hours group based on IN time), Flexible working hours feature,
Scheduling working hour’s group feature (No fixed working
pattern)
Companies
are paying daily allowances like shift allowance, meal allowance,
transport allowance to the employees based on some conditions. For
an example a company may like to pay $5 for night shift workers or
a company may like to pay $2 who is working more than 5 hours of
overtime. So the time attendance software should have all the above
features.
A good
software should come with nicely designed useful reports like Daily
attendance report, Individual attendance report, consolidated
reports which consolidates the Late comers, Early Leavers, Absents
& missed out punching, Lateness summary report and Working
hour’s summary report
Payroll Software:
Payroll
software is the one which computes the employee salaries. A well
written payroll software should have the below options.
The
employee may be paid by hourly rate / daily rate/ monthly fixed
basis. Other than the employee basic salary, the employee’s
overtime, daily allowances needs to be linked from the time
attendance software. The employee may have some additions or
deductions in every month salary like advance payment, medical
claim, special allowance, etc… And the employee unpaid leave,
lateness & early leaving needs to be deducted from his
salary.
Different
countries have their own computation for taxation & provident
funds. So the payroll system should comply with the local
government regulation for salary calculation.
Finally
the payroll should able to generate a pay-slip for individual
employee with all his salary details which can be printed in an A4
size paper or sealed pay-slip paper.
And
payroll software must have useful reports like, Monthly Salary
Summary Report, Overtime Payment Report, Taxation Report, Yearly
Summary Report, and Monthly Reconciliation Report.
Leave Module:
A leave
module either can be built in with the payroll system or it can be
a separate Electronic Leave Application Portal.
Leave Module built-in with payroll
system: The HR Executive needs to
update the employees Annual Leave, Medical Leave, Unpaid Leave,
Maternity Leave, etc in to the system manually.
Electronic Leave Module:
The employee can apply
their leaves electronically online via web browser. Those applied
leaves can be approved by respective approving officers via online.
This is paperless, convenient fast & easy.
A good
leave system should have the option to set Leave Eligibility for
different group of employees and the Annual leave & Medical
Leave earned until today should be prorated
automatically.
There must
be an option to carry forward the balance annual leave to the next
year. And the leave module should have the useful reports like
Leave History & Leave consolidate report to view all kind of
leaves taken.
Conclusion:
Instead of having the above system in different
platform / with different vendors, having an integrated HR solution
will be easier for maintenance & cost
effective.